geekiegeek: NFC would be nice but only if there are places to actually use it.

I'm all for future proofing, and if you're going to keep your new iPhone for two years then that'll take you through to the end of 2014 by which time I would think that NFC use would be reasonably widespread in NZ.

I feel that we have stated to move away from hardware specs and a phone is now all about the software ease of use and the apps that are available.

Yes, but Apple's own apps are pretty good for usability - the real problem is with the poor quality of third party apps and that's largely outside of Apple's control.